MYSTERY OF THE SEA

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 133, 29 February 1936, Page 11

MYSTERY OF THE SEA

Object Seen Off Coast VESSEL OR STORM DEBRIS Dominion Special Service. Auckland, February 27. Mystery surrounds the identity of on object which has been seen off the coast near Whangape Heads, north of Hokianga, during the past two days, and has been variously described as a wrecked launch or larger craft, and a collection of wreckage washed out to set by the storm at the beginning of the month. The object was seen by a party of four Alaoris from Whangape who were fishing off the rocks just north of the entrance to Whangape Harbour. One of the party, Puku Ngawaka, said that at about 2.30 p.m. he saw what appeared to be a brown-painted launch about one and a half miles from hte shore. It was right side up, and a good deal of wreckage was floating about it. Practically all the male population of the Whangape Alaori settlement, numbering about 30, left for the ocean beach, five miles away, in the hope of finding salvage from the wreck. Mr. J. Geddes, a European farmer at Whaugape, who accompanied the Maoris, said that from a point on the coast he saw the wreckage about a mile north of the Whangape Heads. It appeared to be a boat about 60 to 70 feet in length, by 15ft. beam. It was very low in the water, and could only be seen at intervals from the beach when it rose on the swell.

The object seemed either to be an overturned boat with, her back broken, or a vessel floating right side up with her bow and stern higher than the midships portion. Round the vessel there appeared to be spars, sails and a quantity of sawn timber. There was rather a heavy swell running, with a light wind from the south-west, and the wreckage was drifting slowly north along the coast. It was not possible to go out near it. A different story was told by Pomare Ngawaka, a Maori from the Whangape settlement, who said he was on the beach two miles horth of the heads, when the wreckage had drifted quite close to the shore. It seemed to him to be a number of trees and part of a road bridge, with other rubbish tangled into a mass of about the same dimensions as described by Mr. Geddes. Many theories regarding the object were expounded. No vessels are known to be missing on the northern coast, but one suggestion is that the wreckage is from the launch Mokau, lost at sea. off New Plymouth in the storm of a fortnight ago.